Chapman Issue 69-70

Issue: 69-70 - MacDiarmid Centenary Issue

Biggest-ever issue. The challenge is to write something “in the spirit of Hugh MacDairmid” – anything goes except sycophantic imitation or snivelling praise. So here a new generation responds to that radical and controversial spirit – MacDiarmid. Distinguished contemporaries remember the man – his son, Michael and daughter-in-law Deirdre Chapman, Norman MacCaig, Hamish Henderson, Sorley MacLean, Edwin Morgan, George Mackay Brown, Roderick Watson, Pearse Hutchinson, Derick Thomson – and many others, and leading writers and critics of the (then) younger generation including James Robertson, George Gunn, and W N Herbert consider MacDiarmid's legacy. Robert Alan Jamieson argues for a formal Declaration of Cultural Independence. Women writers are represented by the winners of the MacDiarmid Centenary Prize (Mary Angus) and the Scots Language Society's MacDiarmid Tassie 1992 (Lydia Robb), as well as Sheena Blackhall, Ellie McDonald and Anne Shaw. The usual mix of fiction, poetry and reviews includes long poems by George Bruce and Tom Scott, a study of the forgotten Glaswegian poet Eddie Candlish by Stuart Morrison and Hayden Murphy's reflections on Dublin's year as European City of Culture. Critical essays, poetry, fiction, reminiscence, polemic, and a quiz! A truly bumper issue. Now rare, 208 pp, 1992, ISBN-10: 0-906772-50-8 / ISBN-13: 978-0-906772-50-8 £20.00